Pan-African Internet Exchange (PAIX) will launch and operate a new datacentre in Nairobi at the tail-end of 2020 in a move the company suggests will empower East African enterprises with more data management options.

The datacentre will have approximately 240 cabinets and provide 1 megawatt of power to customers.

Construction is scheduled to begin in February 2020.

Wouter Van Hulten, PAIX chief executive officer and founder said Nairobi is an ideal place to set up a datacentre and described it as a doorway into East Africa.

He said it was an opportunity to level up skills in the local datacentre market, which is currently lacking.

"The opportunity is that the engineering needed to build these machines is quite complicated. The fun is taking that know-how and training up a local team on how to build and operate these machines. We take the latest know-how of this industry that comes from vendors like Schneider Electric and ensure they (engineers) start to adopt best practices."

Van Hulten believes human capital is the core of datacentre development and is needed to ensure that the airflow engineering, electrical infrastructure, soft and hardware engineering is effectively managed.

Under the Africa Data Centre Association, operators are collaborating to develop the talent required to build and maintain these resources.

In 2019 PAIX secured €2-million from the Dutch Good Growth Fund to establish datacentres in Ghana and Kenya. The company is already advancing the skills of approximately twenty engineers in Ghana where its first datacentre is located.